Lieutenant Presley Neville O’Bannon was the son of William Barbee O’Bannon and Anne Neville, of Fauquier County, Virginia, born in 1776.  Born in the days of the beginning of our nation, he must have felt the need to make his mark on the world.  Presley became a first lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps in the year Thomas Jefferson took the oath of office and was assigned to the USS Argus.  He fought in the First Barbary War in Tripoli.  He led the attack at the Battle of Derne, in Libya, April 27, 1805, giving the Marines’ Hymn it’s famous line ‘to the shores of Tripoli.’  He was also the first man to raise the United States flag over a foreign soil in time of war.  For O’Bannon’s bravery he was given a Mameluke sword by Prince Hamet Karamanli.

From General James Wilkinson’s Order Book, we find Presley Neville O’Bannon of the Marine Corps was appointed First Lieutenant, to take rank from February 27, 1807.  He was ordered to Michilimackinac.  Now that I live in Michigan I know where Fort Michilimackinac is – derived from an Ottawa Ojibwe name for present-day Mackinac Island and the region around the Straits of Mackinac, between Lake Huron and Lake Superior.  Today the Mackinac Bridge spans the area between northern and lower Michigan.  In 1807 it was new territory taken from the British after the Revolutionary War. 

In The Lexington Herald of June 13, 1920, it says that Presley Neville O’Bannon was hailed as the hero of Derne upon his return to the United States.  ‘He was the idol of the day.  The ladies of Philadelphia presented him with an embroidered saddle cover which is still preserved, and when he passed through Richmond from his ship at Hampton Roads, women and children strewed flowers in his path.’  It reminds me of newspaper articles when the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States in 1824.   

After his service to our country during the Barbary Wars he resigned from the Marine Corps March 6, 1807.  Presley O’Bannon married Matilda Heard, daughter of Major James Heard and Nancy Morgan, a true daughter of the American Revolutionary War, in Frederick County, Virginia, January 24, 1809.  The couple moved to Logan County, Kentucky, and lived in Russellville.

Three children were born to Presley and Matilda – Presley Neville O’Bannon, Jr., 1810-1815; William Eaton O’Bannon, 1811-1820; and Elizabeth Ann O’Bannon, 1812-1835. 

In the O’Bannon Cemetery of Logan County, we find the grave of Presley Neville O’Bannon, Jr., who died August 1815, aged 5 years.  Son William Eaton O’Bannon, died in 1820, but I have found no trace of a grave, or cause of illness.

Checking my Logan County, Kentucky Cemeteries I found a list from the Hopkinsville newspaper of Friday, August 28, 1835, of those living in Russellville (Logan County) who died during the cholera epidemic of 1835, a total of 102 deaths.  ‘Elizabeth O’Bannon, a child’ was on this list.  I am sure this is Presley and Matilda O’Bannon’s daughter.

In 1810 Presley lived in Russellville in Logan County.  Two males are 16-25 are listed, and Presley is 26-44 (34 was his true age).  Presley married Matilda January 24, 1809, in Fauquier County, Virginia. On this date he could not have sons 16-25.  These are probably nephews or cousins that came with him to Kentucky.  Also in the census is one female 16-25, one female 26-44 – Matilda.  The younger female must be a niece. 

In 1820 the following males are listed – 1 to 10 (son William); 1, 10-15; 2, 16-25; 3, 26-44 (Presley and others).  Females – 2 to 10, (daughter Elizabeth); 1, 10-15; 1, 26-44 (Matilda).

Could not find census for 1830.

In 1840 Presley, 50-59, and Matilda, 50-59, are listed with five slaves.  No children since all were deceased by this date. 

According to The Frankfort Commonwealth of August 28, 1849, Matilda O’Bannon died June 11, 1849, of cholera – another outbreak that killed many in the state.  .  The same disease that took Presley’s daughter 14 years earlier, takes his wife.

Presley Neville O’Bannon must have been heartbroken to lose his entire family.  In the 1850 census of Henry County we find Presley O’Bannon, 74, born in Virginia, living in Henry County with John O’Bannon, 47.  John’s wife, Amanda, was 50.  Their children, Sarah, 14; Matilda, 12; Amanda, 11; John W., 8; and Presley, 4, are also in the household. 

Presley and John were descendants of John Foley O’Bannon, who died in Fauquier County, Virginia in 1774. 

John Foley O’Bannon 1710-1774 – William Barbee O’Bannon 1730-1807 – Presley Neville O’Bannon. 

John Foley O’Bannon 1710-1774 – John O’Bannon 1736-1797 – William O’Bannon 1776-1824 – John William O’Bannon 1802-1851. 

June 14, 1920, Presley Neville O’Bannon’s body was moved from Pleasureville Cemetery in Henry County to Frankfort Cemetery.  From the Lexington Herald Leader, ‘Crumbling, covered with moss, a granite grave marker long stood in a neglected spot in Pleasureville Cemetery.  On one of its sides was graven the legend: Lieu. Presley Neville O’Bannon, United States Navy.  He died in 1850 at the age of 75 and it was the intention then that he rest in the State Cemetery, but the Civil War came and his body remained in the family burying ground, from which it was disinterred recently by the Susannah Hart, Shelby Chapter, National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution, and reburied in the Frankfort Cemetery.’

I found an interesting article in the October 26, 1950, Richmond Times Dispatch:

‘It was with a peculiar sort of anticipation that I went to the Colonial last night to see “Tripoli.”  This “historical” adventure stars Virginia John Payne as Lieutenant Presley Neville O’Bannon, the Virginia-born marine who, with a small detachment, landed in Egypt, marched 600 miles across the desert and in 1805 stormed the enemy in Derne while three American ships blazed from the seaward side of the town.  Sometime during the afternoon, the Stars and Stripes went up, and for the first time in history the flag of the United States flew over foreign soil.

‘My particular interest in the film comes from the fact that Presley O’Bannon was my great-great-great-uncle, and while we’ve always been pretty proud of him, his real-life adventures couldn’t hold a candle to what John Payne goes through.

‘Uncle Pres was a handsome and meticulous gentleman, but I’ll bet he didn’t manage to keep his shiny uniform so well-creased while battling the sand and storms on that 600-mile trek.  Uncle Pres had an eye for a pretty lady, too, but it is doubtful if he took time off during this arduous military feat to tussle in the dunes with a beauteous redhead, who had attached herself to the fantastic desert court of Hamed, the Arab ruler whom the Americans intended to put back in the palace after they had subdued the Tripolitan pirates.  Uncle Pres, like all of the O’Bannon’s, married for love, but we don’t find anything on our family tree to indicate that he chose for his wife that same redhead, or that there was anyone in our family as gorgeous as Maureen O’Hara.  Uncle Pres, when he stormed Derne, was 23 years old and impetuous at all get out.  Even so, I doubt that he leaped into the enemy stronghold, singlehandedly set fire to the place, and, all by himself, climbed through debris and dead Arabs to raise the flag.

‘Well, after all Uncle Presley O’Bannon was just a human being, brave, young and full of patriotic devotion.  John Payne is a movie star who can do what the script directs and turn history into a glamorous adventure.  Besides, there wasn’t any technicolor back in 1805 to turn that rumpus into a kaleidoscopic tapestry, and there weren’t any cameras to catch the drama and tempestuousness of the desert march, so maybe things did happen the way they have been dreamed up for Paramount’s Tripoli.’

You can find Tripoli on YouTube!  I watched a few minutes, but realistic is not a word I would use.  That’s Hollywood for you!